All content owned by LP of the Fires. He deserves all credit (only little bits here and there added by me
).Introduction: The Aristocrats is an agro midrange deck Designed by Sam Black of team SCG for the Pro Tour that occurred last weekend. The name is derived from Cartel Aristocrat and Falkenrath Aristocrat which form the core of the deck through their ability to sacrifice creatures for value. The agro comes from cards like Champion of the Parish, [card]Knight of Infamy[/card:
304wpzrt], and Silverblade Paladin that can end games quickly, especially when combined. The midrange elements are found in cards like lingering souls which creates a board presence and Skirsdark High Priest which can take over a game by making demons through tricky combat steps.
While the deck is a completely new quantity that is hard to judge going forward, it did end up being the second best performing deck of the weekend with a win rate of 58.3% and ended up winning the entire event and also had several high place finishes at the SCG open that occurred the same weekend so it definitely has credentials.
The Engines: I mentioned engines earlier but here is where I go in depth. The deck has several. With 8 sac outlets, you want to be able to take advantage of binning your own creatures so how do you do that? One of the more obvious ways is going human heavy so
that yourFalkenrath Aristocrats get bigger and can end games faster. Going human based also improves your aggressive draws by letting you abuse Champion of the Parish.
One of the more underrated cards in standard that is a pivotal card of the deck and an engine in and of itself is Doomed Traveler. This card enables a plethora of tricks and is a central component to the decks nut draws. It's a one drop. It creates value when it dies. If you have a sack outlet, you can win reckoner mirrors by being able to fog attacking reckoners via blocking and sacking before damage. It's also a human for Falkenrath Aristocrat and Champion.
Potentially the most powerful card in the deck if a bit marginal by itself is Skirsdag High Priest. In the midgame, this card has the potential to take over the game by making combat math miserable for your opponent and almost
demands that your opponent "waste" removal on him lest they find themselves in an untenable position. Combined with Doomed traveler and Cartel Aristocrat, you can start making demon tokens as early as turn three. Fact: Most decks can't beat 5/5 Flying Demons on turn 3.
Boros Reckoner, or no Boros Reckoner?: Boros Reckoner is an undeniably powerful card. In the first month or so, it was almost impossible to remove favourably. Now, most strategies have adapted and pack black, or white removal to deal with it. In the end (and I know it's a cop out) it's a meta call. Reckoner really shines in an aggro heavy meta. It also allows you to play Blasphemous Act, which is back breaking (and typically game winning) when resolved. If you meta has more mid range and control, they will be more likely to have black or white removal
and/or sweepers that blanks your reckoner. By not playing Reckoner, you have less issues with your mana base, and you can run more Lingering Souls / Removal.
Gameplan: The deck by virtue of having so called "internal engines" is susceptible to have multiple different openings as opposed to say a typical Red deck that wants to do the same thing every game. The general idea is to apply pressure from turn one, have better combat math against opposing reckoner decks, and finish with Falkenrath aristocrat over the top, all while being able to take advantage of sacrificing it's own creatures, usually in combat. Due to the power and versatility of the majority of your cards, you can get away with playing a more defensive role against opposing agro decks depending on your draws. Postboard games, the deck can board into a more midrange approach with walkers, tokens and extra removal.
Even when your synergies don't line up neatly, you can often get an edge in combat by blocking and then sacking cards to say protect Cartel Aristocrat, giving it protection from color so that it can off an opposing X/2. When your synergies do come online, you do things like make 5/5 flying demons on turn 3 or set up zealous conscripts stealing thragtusks and sacking them so that you gain a beast token. Overall the deck has a lot going for it. With that said, lets dive into a sample decklist:
Tom Martell (PT: Montreal Winner)
Jose Francisco Dantas Mangueira da Silva
Grand Prix Rio De Janeiro 2013 Winner - Standard
Standard Premier #5163809 on 03/17/2013
Standard - Magic Online Championship
As you can see, the human theme is indeed heavily supported with 19 total humans for champion and falkenrath. For removal, the deck plays orzhov charm as it kills reckoner without activating the trigger which is relevant and you can make use of all the other modes. Bouncing a restoration angel and reanimating doomed traveler are both common uses. The mana base is less ambitious then it looks since most of your lands produce white for your early drops and caverns let you hedge your creature types when you need to. The most ambitious card in the mana base is vault of the archangel since it never produces colored mana, but it's so incredibly powerful in addition to being your only source of maindeck lifegain that the risks are well worth the benefits.
Sideboard Options: Board wipe and 13 damage combo? Yes. Blasphemous Act is not only a reset against decks that can bigger then you, it's also a 13 damage combo with reckoner and in fact won Martells seminfal match of the pro tour against the Saito Naya deck.Lingering Soulsand Sorin combine to let you grind out control and midrange decks like jund that are trying to beat you through card advantage. Mentor of the Meek usually comes in against these matchups since it turns all your guys into extra cards and is truly broken with lingering souls. If it's not obvious, you're usually boarding out a large subset of your human package when you switch to the Sorin/Souls package. Obzedat often comes along with this package and can simply win games against control decks by himself, simply blinking in and out of play. The rest of the board is fairly intuitive like slip
being extra removal, RIP for gravehate, and high priest helping you go bigger.
There are a couple potential changes to the board going forward. The biggest hole you should look to fill is the lack of reach based agro tech. You'll find yourself scooping to turn one noble more often than you would like as the red decks are pretty terrible matchups. The obvious answer is nearhearth pilgrim, but moment of heroism probably works better most of the time and is truly backbreaking when used on reckoner in response to removal. Duress is another card that would be nice to have in the board as an anti-control measure though that may not be necessary as the esper matchup is actually favorable post-board already. If this deck becomes popular, a card that we may have to develop an answer for is Curse of Deaths hold since that blanks the majority of the deck. Other than that, you should be ready
to handle most opponents going forward.
I hope everyone else enjoys this deck as much as I do because it greatly rewards those skilled at combat math and it's just a blast to play since your games are always developing differently. Lets see if we can keep this deck tier 1 going forward. I can't wait to hear suggestions for improving the deck.
Matchups: Generally this deck has good matchups across the field. No real blowouts on other side of the spectrum and being 3 colors, you have access to amazing sideboard options. I'll go through the big ones.
Esper control:
UWR Reckoner Control:
B/x Zombies
Bant Control
Naya Midrange
Naya Blitz
Aggro Jund
Videos:
[
youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0uAw81oqM0[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9rYa_UdJMs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pWG2lgzn1k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0M0jzZIEtA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcgslW5YR_s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42Aw6_lf0zk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIW0Y6-ggSg
Again, big thanks to LK for this write up. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
, draw two cards has been a really good play. I'm seeing 1x 
I'll be playing the deck in a GP:T for GP: Beijing tomorrow, and will post results. 
